It is a game of chicken. Sequestration was supposed to be something was so unpleasant that nobody would willingly let it happen. Panetta's comments are an attempt to pre-blame Congress if the cuts come about. Boehner is trying to pre-blame Obama.

How silly of me. Its a game. And I had thought the parties were elected to govern. Instead they are posturing to their respective cheering crowds who are rapt in waiting to see who "wins".

In this particular example; they are posturing over sequestration of $85 billion or approx 2.5% of a $3.6 trillion budget. There are no draconian cuts here.

Though one won't know that from media* reports:The grim picture is emerging as the White House and lawmakers count down the days until the government is forced to trim $85 billion in domestic and defense spending with hardly any leeway to save some programs from the budget knife.

"I've been very clear that these kinds of arbitrary, automatic cuts would have an adverse impact on families, on teachers, on parents who are reliant on Head Start programs, on our military readiness, on mental health services, on medical research," Obama said Friday. "This is not a smart way for us to reduce the deficit."

To me this brings to mind 2 images 1)Nero fiddling while Rome burns & 2)Circuses[games] & subsidized bread[entitlements] to distract the public on how dire the situation of Rome is.

I'm just curious when the American people will realize that we do have a spending problem brought on by BOTH parties. That indeed there are limits to what our government can provide for us.

My inner self is screaming "Wake up Americans!" There are solutions & compromises. We just won't git there by accepting the pablum fed to us the respective political parties who BOTH are in lobbyist's /special interest's pockets.

*Our media is a mere shell of what the media once was. Obama's President's weekend illustrates that perfectly. The media was in a frenzy & outrage at their lack of access. Who really cares what Obama does on his time off or the amount of time & previous presidents take off. Perhaps we rather need critical & penetrating look at the "game" our leaders are playing at the expense of our country's economic future?